MU, Helias Catholic High School and Westminster College have experienced the recent rise of artificial intelligence firsthand.
JEFFERSON CITY – MU, Helias Catholic High School and Westminster College have experienced the recent rise of artificial intelligence firsthand. Faculty at MU and Helias say they have even had students use AI technology like ChatGPT for assignments.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a technology that gives computers the ability to see, understand and translate spoken and written language, analyze data, make recommendations and more.
AI generators, which are similar to search engines, have been on the rise in the last year. ChatGPT is a popular AI generator that launched in November 2022.
Anyone can access the ChatGPT AI generator for free by signing up using their email. Users can type in a question, and the AI generator will give a response. This technology advancement concerns some educators because they say it can interfere with academic honesty.
Spencer Allen is the principal at Helias Catholic High School in Jefferson City and said there have been a few incidents of students using ChatGPT in the classroom. One teacher was walking around the classroom assisting students when he saw the ChatGPT tab open on one student’s computer.
While there is an online program that allows teachers to plug in students’ work to see if it has been plagiarized, Allen said those tools and paper checkers are not an effective response.
“This tool (AI) is just going to get better and better, and those checkers are going to get less effective,” Allen said. “This is a lesson on how we should be teaching writing,” Allen said.
Allen said because this new technology is accessible to kids, teachers and faculty should discuss these programs with students.
“We’re preparing to continue the conversation on our end by talking with the students about the ethical ways to use this powerful tool,” Allen said. “A way that can make their life easier but not in ways that could jeopardize their opportunities to become better people by engaging in the work that is a part of our program.”
Allen said the English department at Helias plans to talk more about this issue and the use of AI in the classroom, and that it is important to educate students about both the benefits and consequences of using AI.
“We need to know how to use these tools in an ethical way,” Allen said. “A way that makes our lives easier so we free up our time to do things that are meaningful, but there are wrong ways to use the tools. It’s wrong not just because they go against rules, but because they are cheat us to become better people on the other end of it.”
Allen said they will continue to use their current discipline procedures of when someone copies or plagiarizes to deal with students who might use ChatGPT in an unethical way.
“Yes we could assign a zero for an assignment. Yes there could be disciplinary consequences especially if there are repeated offenses,” Allen said.
Allen hopes that with a proactive approach, they can limit the harmful use of ChatGPT but is concerned that AI will create future issues.
“Artificial intelligence that is as sophisticated as this is, is also threatening the post-secondary goals of our young people,” Allen said.
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Helias is not the only school in mid-Missouri that has students using AI.
Ben Trachtenberg is the director of MU’s Office of Academic Integrity. He said that while asking a computer a question is not new, ChatGTP is fairly new and AI provides a different quality of work.
“It’s now good enough that occasionally it can do an assignment that otherwise we would expect a human to do,” Trachtenberg said.
Faculty at MU have complained that students are using AI generators.
“I have gotten emails from faculty all over campus saying, ‘What are we going to do about it,’” Trachtenberg said.
Trachtenberg said this new technology will change the way teachers create assignments.
“I think people who teach writing for a living are going to design their assignments a little differently so we are not asking students to spend a ton of time on something that a bot can do in 30 seconds,” Trachtenberg said.
Trachtenberg said faculty needs to educate students about the proper usage of AI, but students need to use their best judgment.
“It is useful for students to think: ‘Would I admit to doing this? If I had to tell the professor that I was doing this, would she allow it?’ If the answer is no, you should not be doing it, and you can get in trouble,” Trachtenberg said.
MU faculty will meet in April to further discuss AI policies.
AI is also a rising topic at Westminster College in Fulton.
Mary Majerus is the director of teaching and learning for faculty at Westminster. Majerus said faculty plans to have a conversation in the following weeks to discuss how to address this new tool.
“As we have this new gift of fire, how will we use it in courses, what is acceptable, what is not acceptable and [for everyone] just be informed on what the expectations are,” Majerus said.
Majerus said professors should pose different types of questions that students cannot answer using AI.
“How do we as faculty, knowing that these shortcuts exist, think about posing tasks, posing critical thinking and problem solving and original kinds of thought questions, rather than just skimming the surface of student knowledge on what they could easily find on the internet?” Majerus said.